Former Super Eagles captain Austin Okocha has slammed Manager Gernot Rohr for his poor tactical approach in Nigeria’s 2-0 defeat to Croatia in their opening game at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, reports Completesportsnigeria.com.
An own goal from Oghenekaro Eteno and a penalty from Luka Modric extended Nigeria’s winless streak in opening World Cup game to four.
Okocha who starred for Nigeria in three FIFA World Cups in 1994, 1998 and 2002 also faulted the team’s poor defending which led to the two goals conceded in each half.
“It was a decent first half but maturity was the edge the Croatian team had over the Nigerian team,” Okocha said on SuperSport, where he was a guest analyst, after the game.
“The Super Eagles got done by the movements of the Croatian team in their box. The Super Eagles midfielders were not doing their best both in defending and in attack.
“Eagles didn’t get the best out of Alex Iwobi and Victor Moses because the manager was trying to accommodate Mikel Obi in the team.
“The manager didn’t earn his money today. We were not a threat in the first half and I was expecting him to play three at the back, five players in the midfield and two strikers to give the team a chance to get back into the game.
“It is sad because I know we can do better than this. Of course there is still hope but we have to do it the hard way now.
“These (Croatians) are world class players who know how to win by exploiting little details.”
Okocha also blamed Rohr for deploying Mikel in the creative role.
“We didn’t have a creative player today,” the former Nigeria No.10 added. “Mikel has been a good servant to the national team. His best position is playing in front of the defence. We saw what he did playing for Chelsea where he had a glorious career.
“The most creative player in that team is Alex Iwobi but he was played on the flanks. He (Iwobi) can play on the flanks at Arsenal because they had better players in that role like Mesut Ozil.
“The reason why we lost was because we played our best players out of their positions.
“Playing Mikel in that position didn’t help Moses and Iwobi on the flanks.”
Rohr Responds
Head coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr, has however responded to Jay Jay, insisting that playing a three-man defence against Croatia was not the best decision.
Gernot Rohr was reacting to criticisms surrounding his choice of 4-2-3-1 formation for the 2-0 defeat to the Europeans in their Group D opener on Saturday night.
Rohr argued that they did not concede in open play, so the blame cannot be on the system.
He said: “We didn’t concede in normal play, we conceded only two goals from set pieces. This is not a question of tactics or system. Our system was okay, we cannot play with three (at the back) when there is only one centre forward.
“We played with four defenders because there were three Croatian strikers who are very strong. I was satisfied with the organisation of the team but what we missed in the game is being professional from set pieces. Each game is different. We know we can play with three centre backs but it was not a good day (Saturday) to do that,”
